Animal magic – new ebook launched featuring Scotland’s wildlife

Dawn Renton

Red deer, red squirrel and harbour seal are stars of a new interactive ebook revealing the viewing hotspots for Scotland’s top native wildlife.

The Scottish Wildlife Series, produced by VisitScotland, features detailed descriptions and facts about the animals, videos of them in action and a guide of where to spot them in their natural habitat.

The red deer, better known as the Monarch of the Glen, is the largest land mammal in Britain and is found in the wild in Cairngorms National Park, Achray Forest, Mar Lodge Estate and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.

The red squirrel is the UK’s only native squirrel species and only 120,000 remain in Scotland today. The most common places to spot them are Aberdeenshire, Dumfries & Galloway, the central Highlands and the Cairngorms National Park.

There are two types of seal in Scotland, the harbour (common) seal and the grey seal. Their favourite places to swim in Scotland are the west coast, the Outer Hebrides and the northerly isles of Orkney and Shetland.

According to The Economic Impact of Wildlife Tourism in Scotland, there are more than 1.1 million wildlife trips a year to or within Scotland by visitors who are here for the primary purpose to enjoy wildlife.

With 49 per cent of respondents to the Scotland Visitor Survey 2015 citing Scotland’s scenery and landscape as their top reason for choosing to visit, it is thought the scope of wildlife tourism is significantly larger.

In that same survey, a third of participants cited Scotland’s woodlands and country parks as an activity they engaged in during their visit with a quarter including wildlife and bird watching.

Malcolm Roughead, chief executive of VisitScotland, said: “Enjoying Scotland’s wildlife is a major part of the holiday experience for visitors and offers a big growth potential to Scottish tourism, as shown by the success and popularity of the Year of Natural Scotland.

“Scotland is home to some of the world’s most beautiful creatures which intrigue and fascinate our visitors and we hope this ebook will encourage even more to get out and explore our natural inhabitants found across the country.”